Introduction to the Education Center on Computational Science & Engineering 
Presented at SSRIC Business Meeting
Sierra Hall, 245 -- CSU Northridge -- 5/8/98

What is the mission of the EC/CSE?

Foster the incorporation of high performance research tools for scientific investigation into the undergraduate curriculum to better prepare learners for post-Baccalaureate activities where

• collaborative, interdisciplinary teams,
• sophisticated computer tools, and
• effective communication among the team members and with others

            are used in research and problem solving.

The Ed Center opened on the SDSU campus October 10, 1997. It has three staff members: Kris Stewart, Director; Ilya Zaslavsky, GIS Staff Scientist; and Dolores Candelario, Assiatant to the Director. At this time, we aslo employ 5 student assistants:  Xiangwei Li, Wai Lee, Phil Deacon, Jason Tate, Amde Mitiku.

NPACI (www.npaci.edu/Partners/partner.html) is an association of 39 universities and research centers from 18 states, with SDSC as the leading edge site. The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) conducts and supports activities in computational science, a third fundamental method for conducting scientific research (in addition to laboratory experimentation and theoretical investigation). Computational Science is defined as using computers (in this context, high performance computers) and related computing technologies (such as applications software, high speed networking, scientific visualization technologies, and large data storage systems) to visualize, analyze, and simulate natural and social phenomena.
Application Thrust Areas of NPACI include Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, Earth Systems Science, and Engineering.
Technology Thrust Areas of NPACI include Data-intensive Computing, Interaction-Environments and Adaptable, Scalable Tools and Environments.

Some examples of past and current projects of SDSC and NPACI:

The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR, www.icpsr.umich.edu) is an NPACI partner within the Education and Outreach Thrust Area to encourage new disciplines to use technologies from High Performance Computing research sites. The ICPSR Data Archive (www.icpsr.umich.edu/archive1.html) is familiar to social science researchers and the ICPSR Summer Program (www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/) is a long-standing opportuntiy bringing social science researchers together. ICPSR has plans to incorporate the High Performance Computing resources from the NPACI soon.
We would appreciate your experiences using this Data Archive and/or attending Summer Program.

NPACI Data-Intensive Computing Environments: (http://www.npaci.edu/DICE)

• Alexandria Digital Library (http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/) A distributed digital library for geographically-referenced information, being developed at UC Santa Barbara  and mirrored at SDSC.
• ELib (UC Berkeley Digital Library) (elib.cs.berkeley.edu) Also, part of the NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Library Initiative and the California Environment Resource Evaluation System (CERES) with the goal "to develop the technologies for intelligent access to massive distributed collections of photographs, satellite images, maps, full text documents and 'multivalent' documents." Mirrored at SDSC
• University of Michigan Digital Library (www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/") "In UMDL, we are instead embracing the open, evolving, decentralized advantages of the web and introducing computational mechanisms to temper its inherent chaos. However, we are also embracing the traditional values of service, organization and access that have made libraries powerful intellectual institutions." Mirrored at SDSC starting June 1998.

 

 

US Economic History, a 3D visualization (http://www.sdsc.edu/GatherScatter/GSspring97/pailthorpe.html): A simulation of main economic indicators, in 3D coordinates (boom, stagflation, depression), to convey the extreme fluctuations during the first half of the century and the stability of the economy since World War II. Developed by Bernard Pailthorpe, Sydney Vislab/SDSC, and Richard Carson, University of California, San Diego/SDSC.

San Diego Bay Project (http://www.sdsc.edu/SDBAY/): A collection of databases, resources,  models, software, and literature, related to San Diego Bay, water quality issues in particular. The databases are searchable, some models can be run on-line, their results are visualized on maps and in VRML. More information and links related to the project are accessible from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis page at SDSC.

• Java and VRML resources for scientists and engineers. Our growing repository of VRML scenes and Java applets arranged by disciplines, is available at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/repository/resources.html
• Java-based instructional interface and analytical extension for Protein Data Base (PDB) developed at SDSC (Deacon)
• Testbed for distance learning collaboratory techniques [Tango, NetMeeting, Habanero, ...]. (X. Li)
• "Virtual Professor" Distance Learning in computationally intensive courses (I. Zaslavsky)
Collaboratory use of GIS over the Internet in instruction (together with NPAC - Syracuse, Dr. Geoffrey Fox), and the experiment in distance teaching of GIS and spatial analysis (EC/CSE, SDSU  to Geography, WMU)
• Group learning in Supercomputing instruction: (K. Stewart)
• Problem-based learning in computational programming instruction. (K. Stewart)

The suggested mechanism of collaboration with CSU faculty

• We have prepared descriptions of the opportunities that SDSC and the NPACI offer to the nation, with a focus on identifying opportunities to enhance undergraduate education (http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/npaci/npaci.html)
• Regular reviews of NPACI and SDSC research and resources are published online at NPACI Online (http://www.npaci.edu/online/)and enVision (formerly Gather/Scatter).
• We make presentations at CSU campuses, and to various SDSU departments, on high performance computing opportunities in undergraduate teaching. To date, we have presented at the CSU GIS Committee meeting (in addition to numerous presentations at SDSU), and to CSU Math and Computer Science Chairs meeting. We have also presented to SDSU departments of Biology , Geology, and Math & Computer Science, to Chairs meetings of Colleges of Arts and Letters, Sciences, Professional Studies and Fine Arts, and Engineering, etc. Also, we have presenetd at CalPoly Pomona. (complete list of presentations, and their texts are available at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/projects/presentations.html).
• We offer workshops on new technologies to SDSU and CSU faculty (http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/training/training.html). Materials of the recent workshop "Collaborative Web-based Technologies: a Comparative Review and Live Demonstration, with Special Focus on Distance Learning Opportunities" are available from our Web page.
• The presentations and workshops can be followed by individual collaboration with faculty on selected projects related to undergraduate teaching.

Examples of collaborations already formed by EC/CSE

• Evaluation and assessment of the Ed Center by the LEAD center, at National Institute for Science Education, NISE, U. Wisconsin, Madison
• NPACI partnership "contract" with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), NPACI partner in Virginia
• NSF proposal by Doug Deutschman (SDSU Biology), on chaparral ecosystem simulation modeling and visualization with the SORTIE-like model (with interfaces tuned to student exploration, in particular) - involves EC/CSE (January 1998)
• Industrial partnership with Mathworks (MATLAB, which now has MapTools) (November 1997)
• National Endowment for the Humanities proposal with Dr. Bob Hoffman (SDSU Ed Tech) on using VRML to simulate the California mission so that 4th grade students can become docents of the mission and conduct virtual tours. (October 1997)
• EC/CSE was client in SDSU's ET 644 Instructional Design course (Roxanna Springer & Lance Larson) (Fall 1997); the methodology of "bridging environments" for high performance computing instruction is further explored in CS205 "Computational programming and visualization" taught by Stewart this Spring

What can the EC/CSE do for you?